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Japan Commits to Eliminating Nuclear Power

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Re: Japan Commits to Eliminating Nuclear Power

#11

Post by gojomo »

tobylane wrote: post #5
hcarvalhoalves wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it really scaremongering? Fukushima was a close call. Considering the population density and the inherent risks (quakes) in Japan, I would say it's a wise decision. Who wants a population living under fear? Fission is a good source of energy, but nuclear plants are obviously less reliable than expected. That will be a thrust to research better alternatives, including better nuclear plant designs, why not?

Fukushima was a freak event in an old power station with inadequate sea defences. Simply building another 2m on top of the wall would have been enough until the station lost its licence due to age.

Coulda shoulda woulda.

I'd like to think the right managers and authorities will do the right thing in such situations. But empirically, they didn't.

Perhaps it's a specific failing of the Japanese governance regime, and knowing their own affairs more than we do, they don't have sufficient confidence they can fix that failing before another 'freak' event occurs.

Re: Japan Commits to Eliminating Nuclear Power

#12

Post by pheon »

bluedanieru wrote: post #9

Here's where I'm at now on nuclear power, as someone who has lived in Tokyo for the last 7 1/2 years: 'Nuclear scaremongers' are right, that is to say they have a point, but for the wrong reasons. They are wrong that nuclear power is inherently dangerous, or that it's bad for the environment when compared e.g. coal, or basically whatever other anti-scientific bullshit they care to trot out to support their anti-nucle…

5 years Tokyo here. That is one of the most concise posts on the topic ive yet read, well done.

I see the problem as the time scales of events. If reactors blew up once ever 3-5 years everyone would be watching and monitoring, lobbying, training, drilling, ranting etc.. but they dont.

Humans just are not designed to train and prepare for 1 event in 20 years. Maybe if Buddhist monks were in charge of the reactors we might have some hope... but they are not.

Re: Japan Commits to Eliminating Nuclear Power

#13

Post by AngryParsley »

hcarvalhoalves wrote: post #4
orangecat wrote: post #2

For all the scorn that creationists (justifiably) receive, scientific ignorance in the form of nuclear scaremongering has done and is doing far more damage.

Is it really scaremongering? Fukushima was a close call. Considering the population density and the inherent risks (quakes) in Japan, I would say it's a wise decision. Who wants a population living under fear? Fission is a good source of energy, but nuclear plants are obviously less reliable than expected. That will be a thrust to research better alternatives, including better nuclear plant designs, why not?

Don't forget that the Tohoku earthquake killed almost 20,000 people. The worst estimates for Fukushima predict it will cause 1,000 deaths. Median estimates predict a couple hundred deaths.

Even though management was criminally bad, Fukushima still killed fewer people than the equivalent number of coal plants run for the same time. Fukushima ran for 40 years, so that's 25 deaths per year worst-case. According to the CATF[1], around 13,000 Americans die each year from fossil fuel power plant emissions. There are around 600 coal plants in the US, so that's just over 20 deaths per plant per year. What's worse is you need more than one coal plant to make up for a nuclear plant. Googling around tells me coal averages 300MW/plant and Fukushima had 4.7GW of capacity. You'd need 15 coal plants to make up for Fukushima. That's 300 deaths per year.

So when the 5th largest earthquake ever recorded strikes, and causes a nuclear power plant to explode twice, and the cleanup is criminally mismanaged, it's still safer than burning fossil fuels.

1. http://www.catf.us/fossil/problems/power_plants/existing/

Re: Japan Commits to Eliminating Nuclear Power

#14

Post by cmelbye »

hcarvalhoalves wrote: post #4
orangecat wrote: post #2

For all the scorn that creationists (justifiably) receive, scientific ignorance in the form of nuclear scaremongering has done and is doing far more damage.

Is it really scaremongering? Fukushima was a close call. Considering the population density and the inherent risks (quakes) in Japan, I would say it's a wise decision. Who wants a population living under fear? Fission is a good source of energy, but nuclear plants are obviously less reliable than expected. That will be a thrust to research better alternatives, including better nuclear plant designs, why not?

The plant was built to withstand quakes. They handle quakes perfectly fine all the time (in Japan and other areas like California). It's the tsunami that caused problems.

Re: Japan Commits to Eliminating Nuclear Power

#15

Post by lispm »

cmelbye wrote: post #14
hcarvalhoalves wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it really scaremongering? Fukushima was a close call. Considering the population density and the inherent risks (quakes) in Japan, I would say it's a wise decision. Who wants a population living under fear? Fission is a good source of energy, but nuclear plants are obviously less reliable than expected. That will be a thrust to research better alternatives, including better nuclear plant designs, why not?

The plant was built to withstand quakes. They handle quakes perfectly fine all the time (in Japan and other areas like California). It's the tsunami that caused problems.

The quake was far stronger than expected. It was still not very close to the reactor.

Reactors cannot withstand such earthquakes. After the earthquake most of Japan's reactors are shutdown. After such an earthquake you need to inspect them, for example to find problems in pipes, pumps, and various other installations.

What Fukushima showed was that a loss of power over a long period of time made problems. The power lines bringing outside electricity were destroyed. Roads were damaged. Other generators were not available.

It's not clear that a similar situation could not happen caused by an extremely strong earthquake much nearer to a power plant.

Re: Japan Commits to Eliminating Nuclear Power

#16

Post by Zebra0815 »

I'm a German and therefore do have another opinion :p

The anti-nuclear movement is not based on anti-scientific and scaremongering - we have Nobel price winners who support that cause and wrote scientific papers of this very issue.

The question asked by them is different from the topic you guys are talking about currently:

* What happens to the radioactive stuff that is created at the end of every of the energy producing process? We're not even able to keep information over thousands of years, how can we be able to big a hole and protect the environment (and our children's children) from radioactive rubbish? If this material is able to somehow get in contact with groundwater we do have a big problem for a whole region. In Germany we do still have forests that none is allowed to eat any fungi - because of Chernobyl which was about 20 years ago and hundreds of miles away...

The storage of radioactive material is a huge problem which isn't solved nowadays. Look at the amount of permanent disposal facilities: there is not a single one for that on the whole world. Even the USA do only have temporary facilities to store there highly radioactive material....

The 2nd problem is trivial: I do not assume that nuclear power plants are unsafe by default. I really do think that it's hard to crash one and bring it to the point of no return where everything blows up. But we saw a few times that it happened. That's technology, it's never a 100% safe. And that's also my problem. If something happens its not only an accident with a few people hurt but a massive disaster where several hundred people are radioactively contaminated, a whole region is uninhabitable and even your children's children have a great chance to give birth to disabled babies.

As I said...it's not that simple. There are a lot of questions still unanswered and this is what we currently see in Japan and saw in Eastern Europe 20 years before. The people will suffer and not only a few years but for generations. If we're able to build more efficient devices and to create other sources of power creation we definitely should do that as we're able to get rid of the (highly unlikely) chance that such a disaster is happening again.

If there are alternatives so why don't we use them? Let's see if it is enough technology out there to generative the energy we need. If no one tries, no one knows - there are studies for both sides of this issue but we do have to at least try it...

Re: Japan Commits to Eliminating Nuclear Power

#17

Post by derleth »

Zebra0815 wrote: post #16

I'm a German and therefore do have another opinion :p The anti-nuclear movement is not based on anti-scientific and scaremongering - we have Nobel price winners who support that cause and wrote scientific papers of this very issue. The question asked by them is different from the topic you guys are talking about currently: * What happens to the radioactive stuff that is created at the end of every of the energy produ…

> The anti-nuclear movement is not based on anti-scientific and scaremongering - we have Nobel price winners who support that cause and wrote scientific papers of this very issue

This doesn't necessarily follow, logically. In order to make the case, we'd need to go point-by-point.

> What happens to the radioactive stuff that is created at the end of every of the energy producing process?

Coal just puts it into the atmosphere.

Re: Japan Commits to Eliminating Nuclear Power

#18

Post by derleth »

hcarvalhoalves wrote: post #7
tobylane wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fukushima was a freak event in an old power station with inadequate sea defences. Simply building another 2m on top of the wall would have been enough until the station lost its licence due to age.

Exactly. Had it been a gas plant or whatever, it wouldn't have mattered. But it was a nuclear plant, and in a nuclear plant any improbable event like that is a major f * up. That's the core issue.

> Had it been a gas plant or whatever

... it would have been doing damage constantly, just by operating, in the form of emitting carbon.

Re: Japan Commits to Eliminating Nuclear Power

#19

Post by lispm »

derleth wrote: post #17
Zebra0815 wrote: post #16

I'm a German and therefore do have another opinion :p The anti-nuclear movement is not based on anti-scientific and scaremongering - we have Nobel price winners who support that cause and wrote scientific papers of this very issue. The question asked by them is different from the topic you guys are talking about currently: * What happens to the radioactive stuff that is created at the end of every of the energy produ…

> The anti-nuclear movement is not based on anti-scientific and scaremongering - we have Nobel price winners who support that cause and wrote scientific papers of this very issue This doesn't necessarily follow, logically. In order to make the case, we'd need to go point-by-point. > What happens to the radioactive stuff that is created at the end of every of the energy producing process? Coal just puts it into the at…

Coal power plants filter radioactive substances, at least here in Germany.

Re: Japan Commits to Eliminating Nuclear Power

#20

Post by simplexion »

Zebra0815 wrote: post #16

I'm a German and therefore do have another opinion :p The anti-nuclear movement is not based on anti-scientific and scaremongering - we have Nobel price winners who support that cause and wrote scientific papers of this very issue. The question asked by them is different from the topic you guys are talking about currently: * What happens to the radioactive stuff that is created at the end of every of the energy produ…

As knowledge increases we figure out ways to use the waste to create more power and decrease waste. blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2009/06/03/could-a-new-generation-of-power-plants-turn-nuclear-waste-into-clean-fuel/
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